Feb17

Last week a beautiful thing showed up on my doorstep in a large cardboard box. A MATTRESS.

It’s pure magic that something as large as a queen size mattress can be folded over upon itself and delivered on a doorstep. My 8-year-old spring mattress had seen better days and my lower back was letting me know about it. Because mail delivery mattresses are a popular thing lately I looked into a few different options, but one came out on top – Casper.

After I hauled the burrito-like bedroll out of the box (and took a breather, because let’s be honest), I hauled it onto my box spring and cut along the spot they indicated. And then I stood back and watched as it grew, and grew, AND GREW. It was like an air mattress inflating without the air!

Then voila – I had a new mattress.

I laid down on the thing immediately and basked in the glory of my brilliance and handiwork. When I was finished I noticed that the Casper mattress was supporting my body in all the right places. There was no pressure on my hips or shoulders, my lower back wasn’t arched in space, and I wasn’t sinking.

Each Casper is made from support foam topped with memory foam topped with an inch and a half of high-performace latex that helps keep the bed cool as you sleep. (I can hardly wait to test this out come summer.) Going a step further in sourcing, the knit fabrics come from South Carolina, the wovens from Belgium, and they’re all sewn together in Illinois and South Carolina before being distributed out of New York. And it doesn’t hurt that both Casper‘s site and social media presence have a great sense of humor about them, an all around great brand that I’m happy to support.

Each mattress is backed by a 100-night, no-hassle return policy, and 10-year full warranty. Oh, and free shipping both ways even if you decide to return it. So if you think a Casper mattress might be for you and want to give it a go, email me at designcrushing@gmail.com and I’ll help you out with a code for $50 off!

I received product in exchange for this post. All words and opinions are my own, as always. Thank you for supporting the brands that help keep Design Crush going!

Feb16

Faust New York has been busy this winter tagging snow-covered cars with the most beautiful snow script. He says that writing in the snow is an affinity of most children, and that while others have managed to shake it as adult he hasn’t. Not only do I want to go outside immediately and write on my own car, but I wouldn’t mind Faust showing up in Pittsburgh and tagging it himself.

Feb16

It’s a trend that’s been slowly building momentum over the past year – big + bold statement art. While the gallery wall doesn’t seem to be going anywhere anytime soon, it’s being given a run for its money by the impactful look of one large piece. So clean and simple, such a focal point. All of these things resonate with my heart and the clean aesthetic I gravitate towards. Feel free to go as big or as bold as you dare, an wall-sized mural is as much fair game as a massive canvas. The beauty of it all is that this treatment works in nearly every room, from dining room to bedroom and everywhere in between.

Feb12

The first thing that caught my eye from Vice and Velvet was their beautifully marbled soaps, the second was the great color palette, and the third was the catchy name. Shop owner Mei Ong’s bath and body products are all handmade and vegan and I’m ready to try them all immediately.

Feb12

Jim Nickelson‘s Adventures in Celestial Mechanics series is full of shots that looks the way I imagine my iPhone photos looking when I think to snap a sunrise or sunset. Sadly, and obviously, that’s not the case. Nickelson’s project is based on his quest to capture each full moon of the year, at moonrise or moonset, from somewhere in the Maine landscape.

In my aerospace engineering program, the workload was relentless with homework in each class every night. Notwithstanding that, Dr. Szebehely had a long-running joke where he refused to give us any homework on the night of a full moon as he would instead tell us with his thick Hungarian accent: “No homework tonight. It is full moon. You have more important things to do.” I’m not sure I did then, but I certainly do now – every full moon now finds me out there with tripod and camera, seeking out the rising or setting moon.

Feb11

About a month ago I asked you all to take a few minutes to take the 2015 Reader Survey, and today I wanted to share the results. Thanks to each of you who did! I read every last entry and comment and really put thought into how I can give you all more of what you want – to see more of my own design work, a few more personal posts, some fashion, how my move back to Pittsburgh has gone and about the city itself. As we roll out a redesign in the next few months I’ll be addressing these things further. Until then, thanks so much for reading!

(If you’re not to type to enjoy a little statistical nerding out feel free to skip the rest, I promise not to be offended.)

Feb11

Richard Johnson has spent the past six years traveling across Canada photographing more than 650 ice huts. Along the way he’s documented the similarities and differences in ice hut architecture between provinces. All have the same purpose of being weather-resistant and portable, but beyond that the real personality of each shelter begins.